Chapter four

Petitefeeme: And here is the fourth chapter ^_^

Kara: Read and enjoy!

"Here Sasuke position one."

"Kara, position two…is this really necessary?"

"…Naruto, position three."

"Naruto, you're late, and Kara, take this as an exercise for real mission…the target moved! Get him!"

Kara moved swiftly from her previous position with Sasuke and Naruto trailing behind her. The three of them waited for Kakashi's signal and Naruto threw himself to…a cat.

As a matter of fact, this cat must be the most talented ninja cat of the world for the number of evasion attempts it made to escape his master (Kara couldn't blame the poor animal though).

She was shooked out of her though by Naruto's loud complaining with her radio's earphones. The brown haired girl winced and walked to the blond, took the cat and hit him behind the head.

"Naruto, careful!" She scolded, rubbing the cat behind its ears to calm it "You're hurting everyone's ears with your shouting!"

"Gomen Kara-chan!" smiled sheepishly the blond haired boy.

Kara sighed and used quickly her medical chakra to heal his bigger scratches.

Due to Rin-sensei's training, Kara quickly improved. The girl was always eager to learn and full of imagination. She was extremely proud to hear her sensei said that soon she would be ready for the chuunin medical exam and become a nurse in the hospital (and so reaching the first stage of her long way as an aspiring ANBU medic).

A few minutes after catching the fury beast (in Naruto's opinion), the girl was highly sympathizing with Tora (the cat's name) who was squished alive by his mistress, Shijimi-san, the wife of the fire lord, a generous woman in all senses of the term.

"What a stupid cat. He owned what he suffered!" snickered Naruto when team seven got out of here.

"Naruto!" Kara scolded, but he was already far away, probably running to Ichiraku as she heard him yelling: "Ramen!"

Kara sighed, noticing that the two other members of her team were already gone.

She pouted. Their companionship wasn't the most wonderful, but she positived that at least they could work reasonably well together if she acted as the buffer between the two alpha males.

She chuckled at her terms a bit, but that resumed well the relationship between the two boys. They were in constant competition with each other. Most of the time Sasuke would win but that only pushed Naruto to work harder to achieve his goals.

'At least it his healthy for them.' The brown haired girl though before asking herself what she wanted to do.

The sakura festival was in two days, and exceptionally, They weren't given another mission 'til after the event.

Kara hadn't received an answer from Hinata about her proposition of going together at the festival. During these two days she wanted to train but moreover she was set upon unlocking her ninjutsu.

Kara's father wasn't like any other ninja. He came from a far away clan and his kekke genkai wasn't actually visible to the eyes.

Because the kekke genkai of the Kokoro clan resided into their ninjutsu.

While most ninja used mainly chakra to control the elements, the Kokoros possessed another energy within their body that allowed them to control them without the use of chakra (they only did so to make their techniques even faster).

However, intertwined with their ninjutsu, came the use of fuinjutsu (sealing techniques).

To discover to which element she was affiliated to, Kara had to use an ancient seal used since the beginning in her clan to 'unlock' the kekke genkai of an individual.

Unfortunately for her the seal she had to use was damn complicated.

She knew that after the chuunin medical exam, she could begin to learn fuinjutsu because healing could also involve lifting curses, but she couldn't wait so long (she could be quite stubborn if she wanted to, a trait of character greatly influenced by Naruto).

After analysing all her possibility, Kara decided to first of all visit Hinata and after that making a quick trip to the library.

This decided, the green eyed girl headed towards the Hyuuga compound.

A bit intimidated, she presented herself to the gates and asked the guards to see Hinata.

After waiting for a few minutes, she was lead by a servant to a training ground where Hinata was sparing with her father.

'Beating should be more appropriate.' The girl though, grimacing slightly when Hiashi landed a hard blow on his daughter.

With this their 'spar' finished and they stopped, Hinata catching her breath with difficulty and Hiashi turning his cold gaze to Kara.

"Who are you?" he asked shortly, walking to his towel and water bottle.

"My name is Kara Tashio." The green eyed girl bowed, a bit nervous but determined to not break down under his scrutiny pupiless eyes "Nice to meet you. I came here to see Hinata."

"Hn." Simply said the Hyuuga patriarch, glancing at his elder daughter before turning back to Kara "Come and have tea with us."

The girl didn't have any chance to reply and so was forced to follow the tall man, Hinata coming beside her.

Kara smiled brightly at Hinata, the shy girl returning her gesture.

They sat around a low table and Hiashi ordered tea before beginning a full scale interrogatory on the poor 12 years old girl.

She was forced to tell him almost everything about her: her parents, skills and even her favourite food. She however succeeded to hide more or less her deep bound with Naruto (even after a few minutes with the cold man she could already tell he was very serious about his daughter's acquaintances' background) and her kekke genkai.

Her answers seemed to satisfy him enough and he gave his permission for the two girls to enjoy the festival together.

They agreed on a meeting point and Hiashi excused himself.

Hinata proposed to walk Kara to the gates and the girl happily agreed.

"I'm s-sorry f-for wh-what you s-saw." Said pitifully the dark haired girl as they walked "I know I'm reall-really weak, b-but I'm really w-working h-hard t-to…"

Kara knew where this was going and put a hand on her shoulder, interrupting her ranting.

"You're not weak Hinata-chan" she stated firmly to her "Don't give up, persevere and one day you will be one of the best kunoichi Konoha has to offer. You have me behind you and I will help."

What she said ignited an idea in her mind and the brown haired girl smiled before suggesting:

"How about we train together? Being a Hyuuga you must be pretty good with taijutsu and I need a bit of training in this area."

"Wh-Why not?" replied the shy girl "Wh-When?"

"How about this afternoon? We could spar one hour or two and after see if it is beneficial to have another meeting." Proposed Kara.

Hinata agreed and the two girls hugged each other before parting, Kara's feet walking her to Konoha's library.

There she showed her card to the woman at the reception who told her that unfortunately she only had access to the second level fuinjutsu books (which where reserved to guenin) which were only theoretical.

"It doesn't matter, thank you." Replied the 12 years old girl before heading to the second floor. She needed all the knowledge she could find, as little it could be.

Effectively the aisle dedicated to sealing techniques was extremely short and after taking two or three books about it she climbed down the stairs to the reception to check them.

She vaguely heard someone yell her name and two seconds later she was brutally tackled in a hug, losing her books.

"Kara-chan!" exclaimed happily Shisui, hugging fiercely the girl "You have to save me!"

"Why?" asked tentatively the still stunned girl.

"My captain wants me to read books and learn." Said the Uchiha like someone had announced him that he was sentenced to death.

"Knowledges are important to a shinobi." Said Kara, not understanding his aversion for learning "Without them you would probably die on missions."

"You are also against me?" pouted the ANBU.

He was going to continue but a voice interrupted him.

"Shisui." Said stoically Itachi Uchiha, 16 years old, ANBU captain and the head of the Uchiha clan.

"Mou, Itachi-kun!" whined Shisui "Can't we go train instead?"

Kara had always been a very good judge of character and in the years honed her gift, realising the usefulness of such a feat.

Itachi on first glance seemed unreadable, and Kara had great difficulty to read anything on him, but there was an aura of deep sadness around him that she only saw on Shisui and Sasuke.

Of course, the girl, like anyone else in Konoha, new of the Uchiha catastrophe when the Kyuubi attacked the village 12 years ago.

The great fox was kept at bay at the level of Konoha walls when he saw a path open and rushed in.

No one knew how this occurred, but while trying to stop him the ninjas let the beast rush into the Uchiha compound.

The clan had stand no chance, being unprepared, and were quickly whipped out, the only survivor being Sasuke (a baby at that time, he was found in a little temple that the fox's paws and tails miraculously missed).

Shisui, Itachi and a lot of other Uchiha were fighting at that time, but only the two survived.

But while Sasuke's aura seemed clouded with sadness and anger and Shisui's with sadness and remorse, Itachi was more ….tense, should she say.

He was obviously stressed and sad, almost in despair.

Kara couldn't help the deep compassion feeling that arose within her towards the teen and the two other Uchihas in general.

"You're trying to do sealing techniques?" asked Shisui while picking up her book for her.

That shocked the girl out of her thoughts. She was so absorbed in trying to read Itachi that she didn't noticed the older Uchiha bending to retrieve her fallen books.

"Thank you." She replied, getting them from him "And yes. I want to become a sealing specialist."

'After all the members of my fallen clan were expert themselves for developing such seals.' She tough for herself, remembering the different seal patterns she saw in her clan sealing book.

"Well good luck princess!" exclaimed Shisui, ruffling her hairs before sprinting upstairs.

Itachi gave a nod and followed after him, leaving a pouting girl (Shisui's antics to her hairs were becoming quite bothersome).

She sighed and headed to the reception's desk and checked the books before walking to her apartment, paging through them.

::This is the line XD::

Kara sat on the ground, under the shade of a tree, exhausted.

Beside her, Hinata all but flopped to the ground, grabbing a water bottle and drinking greedily.

"I think that this…training is really good…for the both of us." Panted Kara, smiling tiredly at the pale eyed girl next to her.

"…Hai." Replied the Hyuuga heiress, as tired as she was, sending her own smile back.

Kara exhaled a long breath before flopping down, stretching her cramped body on the ground.

Hinata imitated her and together they enjoyed the companionable silence that surrounded them.

Frankly, Kara was glad for the distraction. After walking home from the library she had began reading through the books and memorized them quickly.

She had accepted Naruto's invitation to have ramen since she didn't prepared anything, too absorbed in her reading, and after lunch had finished the last books.

She was happy to discover that there were a few very simple seals and began working on one of them. It apparently would permit her to securely close anything like a scroll, a book or a box unless a more experienced enemy ninja was around (all in one any ninja above guenin level).

Since then she had tried to perform the seal and stayed stuck there. No matter how much she kept doing it, each time there was a tiny little something that she wasn't doing right and the seal would end up unusable, no matter how much chakra she poured into it.

"I don't understand." Kara said to Hinata, returning to the present "From what I saw, you are strong, quite resourceful and I'm sure you can summon enough will to be on par with Naruto. So why are you so subdued with your father?"

"My father always made me feel weak, not worthy of being a Hyuuga." Answered quietly the girl after a moment of silence "I can't seem to find the strength to go against him."

Kara turned her head to look at the pale eyed girl. Hinata looked so sad and demoralized.

The brown haired girl didn't think, she just took the other girl's hand and squeezed.

Hinata turned to her a misty gaze and smiled at her friend's silent but strong support.

"I'm sure that one day, you'll be stronger than any Hyuuga." Assured her Kara, smiling brightly.

The green eyed girl, seeing the still disbelieving face of her friend, got an idea.

"Let's make a promise." She proposed, for moment thanking Naruto for rubbing on her "We'll promise each other to become strong independent kunoichis and be there for each other."

"O-Okay." Agreed Hinata with a smile.

They sealed the deal with their pinkies and giggled at their childishness before parting their ways (but not before setting another training session of course).

::This is the line::

Kara smirked as the seal before her glowed softly. She was almost totally covered in ink, a lot of brushes were on the ground, broken, she was tired but she was successful!

She had finally created her own first level locking seal! She knew that this was the first step of a very long way but she was so excited!

She looked at the hour to realise it already was already 12 o'clock. She hadn't slept nor eaten at all since she got back from training with Hinata so absorbed she was with her work.

She still had three hours before meeting Hinata for another training session. She could clean up a bit and sleep before departing.

So she straightened and cleaned the mess she made with the ink and papers before heating some rice, making a note to shop later for food.

While the rice was cooking she washed her face and arms and ate quickly before going to bed.